arrested plough with its drooping-headed animals, a horse detached itself, traces dragging loose behind, the ploughman on its back, and loped with lumbering steps toward the road. And Collins caught a glint of shot-gun barrels. A shout came from behind; Collins turned his head; three more ponderous beasts, mounted by farmers lustful for the hunt, were coming across the fields, traces flying behind, spurning with their broad hoofs shining clods. Again he struck his horse with the butt of his rifle—and the breath began to whistle in its throat. A bullet snarled by, close to his head; from the upper window of a farm-house a shot-gun bellowed. He passed a school-house; he saw the children, released for recess, swarm out of the doors like bees; he glimpsed their white faces; their shrill cries came to him in one brief note as he swept by, and then he swerved to the left into a road that went through a pasture and then on toward the mouth of a cañon. He had to open a gate; he fought at it long, it seemed, but when remounting, he cast a look backward, he saw the winded
